Writing an event email
From Aclubbrussels
This is a set of guidelines for anyone who wants to write an A-Club event email.
The most successful events are those that are well organised. Writing an email with all the necessary information in is very important as this is the first time most A-Club members will hear about your event.
Checklist of things to include in an event email
Essential
- description of what the event is
- date
- time at which you'll meet
- location - normally including a full address (see below)
- name of contact person
- mobile number and/or email of contact person
Useful
- what to bring (food, drink, clothing, ...)
- any costs (tickets, car-pooling, entrance fees, ...)
- whether people need to sign up in advance
- any additional relevant information (length of the walk, link to the exhibition website, ...)
- nearest metro / train / tram / bus stop
- how long it will last (particularly for events outside Brussels)
- language - for non-English events (for example plays or films)
Address
Events that anyone can join on the day
You should give a full address for the location you're meeting at, so that anybody can find it.
If you're planning to meet somewhere large (for example, a railway station, park or market), specify exactly where to meet, so that everybody can find each other easily.
Events that require signing up in advance
For certain events (such as those taking place at individual member's apartments, or meals at restaurants) where you ask people to sign up first, you may choose not to put the address in the email to the list. (This prevents people turning up without signing up first.)
In the initial email to the mailing list:
- ask interested people to sign up via email
- tell them they'll receive the full address when you confirm their place
- it might be a good idea to include a general location (eg. 'in Ixelles').
In the confirmation email you send to each person who's interested, you should then include:
- the full address
- a reminder of the date and time.
Subject Line
Make the subject line concise. A perfect subject has two or three words to describe the event, followed by the date of the event.
Advice
- Write your email yourself. Other organisers will happily check it and post it out, but they may not have time to write it for you.
- Sell the event a little - tell people why they should come. Give them some incentives to come along. Make it sound enjoyable!
- Please try and limit the number of emails posted out. For most events, a single email is enough! If you can combine your event with another one in the same email, particularly one on the same night or of the same type, that's even better.
- For any event with potential dangers (for instance, rock climbing), it's worth reminding people that they participate at their own risk, and are responsible for having their own insurance.
- If numbers are limited, it's useful to mention this in advance.
- Remember, many A-Club members are new to Brussels. We want to make it possible for them to come to every event we organise. So please don't assume they know where a particular bar, cinema or restaurant is. (You can however assume they're able to find an address on a street map...)
- Don't include too much information that's not directly relevant to the event. It will just make it more difficult to find out the important details about the event.
- Include all the details, especially the event date & time in the main text of the email (i.e. not the subject line)
- Include your contact details (email address) in the main text of the email
- Attachments are awkward, they eat up mailbox space, some systems can't read particular formats, they cause messages to be blocked by spam filters and so on. Please avoid them and just send a simple text email. If you need to reference further information, just include a URL.
Sending your mail
- check what you're about to send - and now check it again
- it's going to be posted to nearly 1000 addresses (as of January 2008), so please make every effort to get it right first time!
- If you're an official organiser, see Posting an email to the group for instructions on how to send it.
- For everybody else, send an email to aclubbrussels@yahoo.com asking the organisers to post out your mail for you. Include the text and the subject line.
See also
